Lee Anderson accused of wanting to copy authoritarian regimes over call for a referendum on the death penalty

Reform MP Lee Anderson has been accused of wanting to copy authoritarian regimes after saying there should be a referendum on reintroducing the death penalty.

In a Sun article published on Wednesday, Anderson said he thought the public would vote to bring back capital punishment in the UK. 

The death penalty was abolished in the UK in 1969, but Anderson has voiced support for it since he became an MP in 2019.

Asked if he backed a referendum on the death penalty, the Reform MP said: “We learnt that with the Brexit referendum, it divides the country and gets families falling out with each other. 

“So yes I would, but it would be divisive, very divisive.”

Anderson stated: “This is how out of touch I think Parliament is. I think the public would vote for the death penalty. Parliament would never vote for the death penalty.” 

A YouGov poll from November last year found that eight in ten Reform voters (82%) support bringing back the death penalty, as do two thirds (67%) of Conservative voters.

The level of support for the death penalty falls to 35% among Labour voters and 30% for Lib Dems, with Greens the least likely to support capital punishment at 26%.

Across all British voters, 50% backed a referendum on the death penalty, while 45% were opposed.

Defending the death penalty, Anderson dismissed concerns that innocent people could be executed.

“People say no you might get the wrong person. That’s nonsense. The people that killed Lee Rigby, PC Harper’s killers. They weren’t the wrong people,” he said. 

Maya Foa, CEO of Reprieve, a charity that supports people facing torture, unlawful detention and the death penalty, called Anderson’s comments “attention-seeking bluster, not a serious proposal”. 

“The death penalty is increasingly the preserve of authoritarian regimes, and it says a lot about Lee Anderson that he thinks the UK should be following the example of Iran, China, Saudi Arabia and Donald Trump’s USA,” Foa said. 

“The death penalty does not deter crime – the murder rate is consistently higher in US states that have capital punishment than in those that don’t. There is no humane way to execute someone and it often goes wrong – just in the last year, we’ve witnessed horrific scenes of men being tortured in execution chambers in Tennessee and Alabama.

“Every criminal justice system makes mistakes, including Britain’s – look at Andrew Malkinson, who spent 17 years in prison fighting a wrongful conviction for rape. The death penalty is irreversible, and where it exists, innocent people will inevitably be executed.

“The outcry after Timothy Evans was hanged for murders he didn’t commit eventually led to abolition in the UK. This is what Lee Anderson is proposing we go back to – a cruel, arbitrary and ineffective punishment that most democratic societies rejected long ago.”

Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain also has a policy to hold a referendum on bringing back the death penalty.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward